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The first vaccine designed to protect infants against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) by vaccinating their mothers during pregnancy has been backed by a panel of advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. On Thursday the independent committee of experts voted unanimously that the Pfizer-made vaccine was effective, and 10-4 that there was adequate data on safety to move the vaccine to approval, the Associated Press reported. The shot would be given to pregnant women at 24 to 36 weeks gestation. This should stimulate the production of maternal antibodies to RSV that would then pass through the placenta to the fetus. “Before the pandemic, RSV was the No. 1 cause of infant hospitalization in the United States, so this is a big deal,” Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the precision vaccines program at Boston Children’s Hospital, told NBC News. Levy is a temporary voting member of the panel, but not one who voted on this vaccine. The FDA will still need to approve the vaccine, a process that could take months. The agency is not obligated to follow its advisers’ recommendations, but it usually does. The Pfizer-made vaccine would only be the second one ever approved in the United States for RSV. A vaccine made by pharmaceutical company GSK was approved for adults ages 60 and up earlier this month. However, 11 RSV vaccines for… read on > read on >

It’s well known that it’s unhealthy to have belly fat accumulating around your abdominal organs, but there’s a more insidious form of fat that could be even more hazardous to your health, a new study says. Fat that infiltrates your muscles appears to dramatically increase your risk of death, according to findings published May 16 in the journal Radiology. Fatty muscle — a condition called myosteatosis — was associated with a 15.5% increase in absolute risk of death in a group of healthy adults, researchers found. By comparison, obesity appeared to increase participants’ absolute mortality risk by only 7.6%, results show. Fatty liver disease raised risk by 8.5% and muscle wasting by 9.7%. “The signal [for muscle fat risk] was so much stronger for this otherwise healthy cohort,” said senior researcher Dr. Perry Pickhardt, chief of gastrointestinal imaging at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “It really stood out as a strong biomarker beyond the things I think we all accept as important measures. “I think there’s going to be profiling of patients where if you line up myosteatosis with a very fatty liver or maybe abundant visceral fat, you might be a lot worse off than if you just had one of those or two of those,” Pickhardt added. Muscle fat has been a subject of increasing interest in the… read on > read on >

Ever heard of the winter blues? This common phrase is used to describe that blah feeling that strikes during winter months when the weather is cold and the sky is gray in many parts of the country. The reality is, the winter blues is a form of depression. “When there is a shift in the season and our access to daylight, our bodies struggle to adjust to the new light and time frame,” Susan Albers, a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic, explains in an online video. This phenomenon is referred to as seasonal depression. What is seasonal depression? This type of depression is also known as seasonal affective disorder or SAD. The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) describes SAD as “changes in your mood and behavior whenever the seasons change.” Feeling hopeless, helpless or irritable are all signs of depression. When those emotions occur seasonally and last for several months, it could be SAD. Contrary to what you may think about seasonal affective disorder, it can strike at any time of the year, not just in the winter. In fact, there are two types of SAD. Fall-onset SAD or winter depression usually begins in the fall or early winter and symptoms ease in the summer. Symptoms of spring-onset SAD or summer depression begin in the late spring or early summer. Summer depression is… read on > read on >

Regular exercise has a long list of health benefits, and a new study suggests another one could be added: a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease. The study, of nearly 99,000 French women, found that those who were most physically active day to day were 25% less likely to develop Parkinson’s over three decades, versus women who were more sedentary. That does not prove that exercise, per se, is responsible, the researchers said. At the same time, they say it’s unlikely that the link reflects “reverse-causation” — women in the earliest stages of Parkinson’s being less likely to exercise. That’s because the study assessed the women’s exercise habits for up to 20 years before their Parkinson’s diagnosis. And since regular exercise clearly has benefits anyway, the findings could be seen as another motivator to get moving, said senior researcher Dr. Alexis Elbaz. “Physical activity has beneficial effects on many body systems, including the bones, heart and lungs,” said Elbaz, a research professor at the French national research institute INSERM in Paris. “And our findings show that physical activity might also contribute to preventing or delaying Parkinson’s disease.” Parkinson’s disease affects nearly 1 million people in the United States, according to the Parkinson’s Foundation. It is a brain disease that gradually destroys or disables cells that produce dopamine, a chemical that helps regulate movement and emotional responses.… read on > read on >

Pregnancy is a difficult and potentially dangerous time in a woman’s life, and U.S. women say they aren’t getting the support they need while they’re expecting, a new HealthDay/Harris Poll has found. Nearly 2 in 5 women who are pregnant or have ever been pregnant (37%) say they have experienced barriers to getting needed care. Worse, women in their prime childbearing years (18 to 34) are more than twice as likely as those who are 35 and older to say they encountered barriers to needed health care during pregnancy and birth — 74% versus 28%. The most common barrier they cite is an inability to make doctor’s appointments because of they are unable to take time off work or find child care. One in 5 women overall (19%) — and 2 in 5 between 18 and 34 (39%) — cite that as a reason they didn’t get the care they needed, poll results showed. As a result, women are nearly unanimous in their support for paid maternity leave and better health care in pregnancy: Nine in 10 women (92%) think maternity leave is crucial for improving mothers’ health outcomes, including 64% who strongly agree. Nine in 10 women (91%) also think maternity leave is key to improving babies’ health outcomes, including 61% who strongly agree. More than 4 in 5 women (86%) say more must… read on > read on >

The first RSV vaccine designed to protect infants is under consideration by a panel of advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. An independent committee of experts will vote Thursday on whether to recommend the shot for pregnant mothers at 24 to 36 weeks gestation. “Before the pandemic, RSV was the No. 1 cause of infant hospitalization in the United States, so this is a big deal,” Dr. Ofer Levy, director of the precision vaccines program at Boston Children’s Hospital, told NBC News. Levy is a temporary voting member of the panel, but not one who will vote on this vaccine. If the panel recommends the vaccine, the FDA would still need to approve it, a process that could take months. The agency is not obligated to follow its advisers’ recommendations, but it usually does. The Pfizer-made vaccine would only be the second one ever approved in the United States for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus). A vaccine made by pharmaceutical company GSK was approved for adults ages 60 and up earlier this month. However, 11 RSV vaccines for various age groups are being tested in ongoing clinical trials. When a mother-to-be receives the vaccine, protective antibodies transfer to infants through the placenta. Safety data for the infant vaccine is “generally favorable,” according to the FDA. Trial participants had a slightly elevated rate of preterm… read on > read on >

It’s a wonderful thing to try to save stray animals, but for some people it can turn into a form of hoarding thats dangerous for pets and humans alike. People who “hoard” animals may feel like they’re saving them, but caring for many pets may take a toll on their well-being and that of the animals they take in, according to a new study. “Although most folks with hoarding disorder collect objects, for some folks their main struggle is having more animals than they can care for,” said lead author Mary Dozier, an assistant professor of psychology at Mississippi State University. “Most research on animal hoarding has focused on extreme cases,” she said in a university news release. “We wanted to look at what normative patterns of animal ownership look like, particularly in a rural setting, and if there were any trends we could discover related to animal health.” To do that, Dozier and her colleague Ben Porter examined a decade’s worth of records from MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine. The study looked for the number of cats and dogs per household and indicators of animal health. This included positive indicators, such as dental visits, and negative ones, such as hydration problems. Dozier said people who have animal hoarding disorder may not recognize that these tendencies are impacting the health of their pets. The researchers… read on > read on >

Men, want to burn fat? Chill out. New research shows that exposure to cold in the morning may help you burn more fat than at other times of day. Exposure to cold activates brown fat, producing heat to help the body maintain its temperature and burn calories, especially those from fat. That makes it an ideal way for guys to improve cardiometabolic health — preventable conditions like heart attack, diabetes and liver disease, for instance. Sorry, ladies. The same may not be true for you. “Our study indicates that the optimum time to undergo cold exposure is at a specific point in the body’s 24-hour cycle,” said study co-author Mariëtte Boon, of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “It may also be that there is a sex difference in how the body responds to cold exposure with respect to boosting metabolism at a certain time point, and it appears that delivering cold exposure therapies in the morning may be more beneficial than the evening for men.” The investigators set out to determine whether there was a circadian (time-influenced) rhythm in humans’ brown fat activity, and if there were any differences between men and women. In rodents, brown fat metabolic activity fluctuates throughout the day, peaking just before waking up, the study authors noted. Heat production from food digestion and activity declines at night. Waking… read on > read on >

When young men pack on excess weight during their teens and 20s, they may inadvertently drive up their risk for prostate cancer later on. The concern stems from new research that examined several decades’ worth of weight fluctuations and prostate cancer rates among nearly 260,000 men in Sweden. The men ranged in age from 17 to 60. Researchers initially observed that overall, participants who put on roughly 1 pound or more per year across their life span had a 10% higher risk for developing aggressive prostate cancer as older adults. A similar weight pattern was linked to a 29% greater risk of fatal prostate cancer. But digging deeper, researchers found that most of the men grew heavier between the ages of 17 and 29. And ultimately most of the weight-associated increase in cancer risk was pegged to weight gains in that age bracket. “We were surprised [by] the rapid weight gain in young adulthood, and that the risk of prostate cancer later in life was strongly associated with this rapid weight gain,” said lead author Marisa da Silva, a postdoctoral fellow at the Lund University Cancer Center in Sweden. She stressed that the findings are not definitive proof that youthful weight gains caused prostate cancer risk to rise, only that the two are linked. Even the possibility of a weight-driven risk factor is important, da… read on > read on >

Combining a swallowable gastric balloon with a weight loss drug may be a way to lose significant body weight, a new study suggests. In about eight months of combination treatment, participants lost an average of 19% of their body weight, and significantly reduced their body mass index (BMI), researchers report. “Combination therapy gives providers much flexibility and further options in managing obesity in patients who need additional weight loss or increased durability,” said lead researcher Dr. Roberta Ienca, from the Nuova Villa Claudia Clinic in Rome, Italy. “The ease of use and low rate of adverse events make it an ideal primary weight loss therapy that can be complemented by medications or other treatments,” she added. Gastric balloons for weight loss are not new, but they haven’t been popular because they require an endoscopy for placement, the study authors said. This new swallowable balloon from Allurion Technologies eliminates the need for a medical procedure. (Ienca and her two co-authors are advisors for Allurion.) In the noninvasive procedure, the balloon is swallowed as a capsule and is filled with liquid after it reaches the stomach. The outpatient procedure takes about 20 minutes. After about 16 weeks, the balloon is excreted naturally. The balloon reduces the amount of food that can be ingested, which leads to weight loss. Taking the diabetes drug liraglutide (Saxenda) enhances feelings of… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

FDA Panel Backs First RSV Vaccine Given in Pregnancy to Protect Infants

Fat Growing Around Muscles Could Be a Silent Killer

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): What It Is, Symptoms & Treatments

Another Possible Exercise Bonus: Preventing Parkinson’s

American Women Need More Maternity Leave, Access to Pregnancy Care: Poll

FDA Panel to Vote on First RSV Vaccine Given in Pregnancy to Protect Infants

When Does ‘Saving’ Animals Become Unhealthy Hoarding?

Cold Weather May Help Burn Fat, and Time of Day Matters

Extra Pounds in Youth Could Raise a Man’s Odds for Fatal Prostate Cancer Decades Later

A Swallowable Gastric Balloon Helps People Shed Pounds